Major party presidential nominees, minus nine years (losers division)

I thought I'd apply your nine-year test to unsuccessful nominees, and break them down like you did the winners. The breakdown is comparable:

Probably on short list: Hubert Humphrey in 1959, prominent senator, gearing up to run for president in 1960; Walter Mondale in 1975, also a prominent senator, though he decided against a 1976 run; Bob Dole in 1987 and John McCain in 1999, both prominent senators like Humphrey getting ready to run for president the following year; Al Gore in 1991, rising senator, had made unsuccessful White House race in 1988.

At least on very long list: Thomas E. Dewey in 1939, highly-publicized Manhattan DA, would wind up as New York governor in 1942, and as nominee in both '44 (against FDR) and '48; Barry Goldwater in 1955 and George McGovern in 1963, both first-term senators who had won narrow victories in very small states; John Kerry in 1995, a senator overshadowed by Ted Kennedy and several other Massachusetts political figures.

Out of nowhere: Adlai Stevenson in 1943, a prominent Chicago attorney who had never run for office; Michael Dukakis in 1979, just ousted in a primary after one term as Massachusetts governor.

This category breakdown -- 5/4/2 -- looks right to me, though Dewey seems borderline between very-long-list and out-of-nowhere. And, hey, what's he doing in the list of losers, anyway? See accompanying photo.

The chances that the winner 9 years from the election is off the radar screen (7 out of 10) is greater, by this small sample, than the chances that the loser is off the radar screen (6 out of 11). It may be that this is statistically meaningless, or it may mean that voters exhibit a slight choice for unfamilar faces.

A political science graduate student might be able to get a PhD out of conducting similar analyses on hundreds of races at varying levels of government to see if any patterns emerge.

Posted at 03:44:31 PM

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